not at all sentimental

gems from octavio paz

“It is always difficult to give oneself up; few persons anywhere ever succeed in doing so, and even fewer transcend the possessive stage to know love for what it actually is: a perpetual discovery, and immersion in the waters of reality, an unending re-creation.”

“I thought that the world was a vast system of signs, a conversation between giant beings. My actions, the cricket's saw, the star's blink, were nothing but pauses and syllables, scattered phrases from that dialogue. What word could it be, of which I was only a syllable? Who speaks the word? To whom is it spoken?”

“At times poetry is the vertigo of bodies and the vertigo of speech and the vertigo of death;
the walk with eyes closed along the edge of the cliff, and the verbena in submarine gardens;
the laughter that sets on fire the rules and the holy commandments;
the descent of parachuting words onto the sands of the page;
the despair that boards a paper boat and crosses,
for forty nights and forty days, the night-sorrow sea and the day-sorrow desert;
the idolatry of the self and the desecration of the self and the dissipation of the self;
the beheading of epithets, the burial of mirrors;
the recollection of pronouns freshly cut in the
garden of Epicurus, and the garden of Netzahualcoyotl;
the flute solo on the terrace of memory and the dance of flames in the cave of thought;
the migrations of millions of verbs, wings and claws, seeds and hands;
the nouns, bony and full of roots, planted on the waves of language;
the love unseen and the love unheard and the love unsaid: the love in love.”

“Beyond myself, somewhere, I wait for my arrival.”

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

summer reading part four

all quotes from the book indigenizing the academy: transforming scholarship and empowering communities edited by devon abbott mihesuah & angela cavender wilson

from chapter 10: "in the trenches: a critical look at the isolation of American Indian political practices in the nonempirical social science of political science" by joely de la torre

"political science is dominated by white males who are not concerned with Indigenous knowledge, American Indian political practices, or empowering Indigenous people.  Instead, they hide behind terms like 'academic,' 'empirical,' 'quantantative,' and 'evidence' to avoid any meaningful analysis."

"all groups must come to understand themselves as their situation defines them and not as other groups see them.  by accepting ourselves and defining the values within which we can be most comfortable, we can find peace.  in essence, we must all create social isolates, which have economic bases that support creative and innovative efforts to customize values we need.  myths mus be re-examined and clarified.  where they are detrimental, sharp and necessary distinctions must be made.  the fear of the unknown must be eliminated.  the white mythologizes the racial minorities because of his lack of knowledge of them.  these myths then create barriers for communication between various segments of society." -vine deloria, jr.

"if sovereignty is restricted to a legal-political context, then it becomes a limiting concept, which serves to prevent solutions. the legal-political context is structured in an adversary situation, which precludes both understanding and satisfactory resolution of difficulties and should be considered as a last resort. . . in which human problems and relationships are seen." -vine deloria, jr.

"native scholars such as deloria argue that cultural integrity moves from defining sovereignty as a political power or a legal concept to a value-based approach.  in other words, he defines cultural integrity as follows: 'commitment to a central and easily understood purpose that motivates a group of people, enables them to form efficient, albeit informal social institutions, and provides for them clear identity which cannot be eroded by the passage of time.  it involves most of all a strong sense of community, a degree of self-containment, a pride that transcends all objective codes, rules and regulations.'"

"Indigenous knowledge should also be included in political theory that searches for other conceptions of political decision making, outcomes, and processes.  most political theory courses compel students to analyze and critique only theoretical descriptions of behaviors and political institutions.  including Indigenous knowledge in political theory would challenge students and the discipline to examine cognitive and affective issues, consider alternative methods, and ultimately participate in determinations that positively affect the students, the discipline of political science, the academy, individual Indigenous scholars, and Indigenous communities as a whole."

"dialogues must be encouraged that revisit traditional systems of governance, instead of dwelling on contemporary forms of government."

"empowering American Indians to assert our political status in a world that consistently tries to depreciate our status is of utmost importance.  we must comprehend both how our tribal background and structure operates and how the american political system operates if we are to effectively deal with the rhetoric, policy shifts, and legal challenges that come our way."

from chapter 11: "graduating indigenous students by confronting the academic environment" by joshua k. mihesuah

"how can an outsider really understand life on reservations, the struggle for recognition, sovereignty, economic development, preservation of language and culture?" -karen swisher

from chapter 12: "so you think you hired an 'Indian' faculty member?: the ethnic fraud paradox in higher education" by cornel d. pewewardy

"the true source of power and control is the ability to convince people that their experienced reality is real."

"we scholars/activists of color need to understand the ways in which we manipulate our multiple, fluid, clashing, and colonized identities and how our identities are manipulated and marginalized in the midst of oppressive discources." -sofia villenas

from chapter 13: "not the end of the stories, not the end of the songs: visualizing, signifying, counter colonizing" by david anthony tyeeme clark

"first, everyone here agrees, at least for now, that to decolonize what currently is widely accepted as knowledge about 'Indians' is crucial.  second, a consensus emerges in these pages around the need to theorize, conceptualize, and represent Indigenous sovereignty so that our people may live well into the unforeseeable future.  third, contributors to this volume argue for the necessities of producing indigenous knowledges for Indigenous Peoples rather than primarily as subjects for non-Indigenous curiosity."

"these three central concerns consist of the interrelated matters of decolonizing research methodologies, theorizing sovereignty, and producing knowledge."

"when the academy becomes a safe place wherein scholarly attention is devoted to studies of Indigenous governance, languages, oral histories, technologies, and sciences, as well as to historic and sacred site protection, community health, and treaty rights, then, in those moments of knowledge production, the academy will be indigenized."

the pit

the pit

i couldn't find it choking me
i threw myself over a chair
held my hands to my throat
air not rushing heavy into spaces
all was doomed

the dance slammed me hard
the fire cooked me down
the arms closed upon themselves

pity

what i didn't ask for
was


11.05.12

https://soundcloud.com/slow-and-behold/the-pit

summer reading part three

all quotes from the book indigenizing the academy: transforming scholarship and empowering communities edited by devon abbott mihesuah & angela cavender wilson
 

from chapter 7: "keeping culture in mind: transforming academic training in professional psychology for indian country" by joseph p. gone 

"the conventions of professional practice in psychology are western in origin and frequently diverge in profound and problematic ways from the cultural concepts and practices of contemporary Native communities."

"the history of euro-american colonization renders the provision of conventional psychological interventions to Native people a potentially detrimental encounter, resulting from the fundamental incongruence of such interventions with the extant healing traditions of many tribal nations."

"these western ethnopsychologies. . . are discordant with most tribal ethnopsychologies with regard to emotional experience and expression; norms governing kinds and qualities of acceptable communication; the nature of distress, disorder, and its treatment; and the meanings of personhood, social relations, and spirituality."

"western ethnopsychologies of the person typically embrace the traditions of dualism, individualism, and modernity, conceptually separating mind from body, prioritizing the individual self over social relationships, and typically excluding attention to spirituality.  one implication of these formative cultural assumptions is the organizational segregation of 'mental health' from the rest of biomedicine within western health care systems."

"Gros Ventres are culturally committed to a view of personhood that celebrates forbearance, emotional reserve, and strength of mind in the face of hardship, suffering, or distress. . .such a view of personhood stands in sharp contrast to the cultural assumptions embedded within the most prevalent contemporary psychotherapies, in which confessional acknowledgements of weakness, fragility, or dependency are explicitly encouraged and unvarnished expressions of illicit thought or troubling emotion are directly solicited."

"Native American experiences of Euro-American colonialism have always inspired acts of resistance, discourses of critique, movements of agentic negotiation, and moments of alternative possibility, though always in the context of asymmetrical power relations."

"to the extent that we are committed to refashioning, reenvisioning, or reforming the Western academy with recourse to indigenous thought and practice, we are inevitably prescribing (whether implicitly or explicitly) what we are willing to adopt from the western university tradition, what we are willing to adapt of our own indigenous epistemological traditions, and which aspects of these disparate traditions we are prepared to omit from the transaction altogether.  the intrinsic complexity here involves an infinite array of strategies for deciding what to adopt, what to adapt, and what to omit from these divergent ways of knowing and learning within our visions for transforming the academy."

"community psychologists have long advocated community-based education and consultation (as opposed to clinic-based psychotherapeutic services) emphasizing collaborative and empowering relationships with community stakeholders (as opposed to expert-client relationships with patients) toward the development of strengths-focused (as opposed to deficit-focused), preventive (as opposed to rehabilitative) interventions."

"cultural psychology takes as its conceptual point of departure the co-constitution of culture and mind.  its central locus of inquiry therefore concerns the semiotic (i.e., symbolically mediated) nature of human experience.  the resultant formulation of local ethnopsychologies within the framework of cultural psychology will encompass multiple relevant content areas, including culture, language, and mind; self and personhood; emotional experience and expression; concepts of health, illness, and healing; and research reflexivity (i.e., attention to how the knower constructs the known)."

from chapter 8: "should American Indian history remain a field of study?" by devon abbott mihesuah

"we need to eliminate useless or repetitive research and focus on actual community needs; it is both unethical and wasteful to plow familiar ground continually." -vine deloria jr.

"nietzsche asserted that 'the unhistorical and the historical are necessary in equal measure for the health of an individual, of a people, and of a culture.'  for Indigenous people, knowledge of the past is crucial for their identity growth and development, pride, problem-solving strategies, and cultural survival.  nietzsche also claims that being 'unhistorical' - able to forget the past - is one way to find happiness.  in some circumstances, the advice to 'forget it and move on' is useful, especially for trivial day-to-day events and confrontations.  but the strategy of becoming unhistorical is simply not possible for tribal people with complex histories and cultures and devastating past (and present) relations with non-Natives that have shaped their modern realities."

"history is best defined as a continual, open-ended process of argument, which is constantly changing.  no question is closed because any problem can be reopened by finding new evidence of by taking a new look at old evidence.  thus there are no final answers, only good, coherent arguments: history is not some irreducible list of 'the facts' but continually changing bodies of evidence." -norman j. wilson

"narrative is also the reflection of the author's bias, political agendas, and patriotic fervor.  if one needs to prove a point, any history is possible."

"Native historians and our allies should have the right to identify histories that are helpful to the tribes, accurate in their tribe's eyes, racist, or incomplete.  wilson proposed it first by entitling one of her essays 'American Indian history or non-Indian perceptions of American Indian history?' and by suggesting that authors admit what they are attempting to accomplish."

"a useful model in understanding why historians write the way they do is the 'patterns' of history put forth by grob and billias, in which they argue that writers analyze the past according to the standards and political and social climate of the generation in which the historians live.  'every generation of american scholars seem to have reinterpreted the past in terms of its own age,' they write.  'thus, each succeeding generation of americans seems to have rewritten the history of the nation in such a way as to suit its own image.'"

"any science of society should be launched in the service of some conception of social justice, equity, freedom, and progress - that is to say, some idea of what a good society might be." -hayden white

from chapter 9: "teaching Indigenous cultural resource management" by andrea a. hunter

"the issues between these two [Native American and archaeology] communities center on various aspects of cultural heritage, that is, who owns the past, who manages the past, and who has the right to tell stories about the past.  imbedded within these questions, particularly the question of who owns the past, is the concept of repatriation and protection of sacred ancestral sites and objects."

"if there has ever been a discipline in the academy that needed to be Indigenized, it is certainly anthropology, and archaelogy in particular."

"traditionally, american archaeology has adhered stringently to a western, scientific worldview for studying and understanding past cultures and teaching about the past.  incorporating tribal knowledge, oral histories, and particularly migration and origin histories into archaeological research of past cultures is viewed by some as an inappropriate course of study because such resources are considered objectionable."

summer reading part two

all quotes from the book indigenizing the academy: transforming scholarship and empowering communities edited by devon abbott mihesuah & angela cavender wilson


from chapter 5: "warrior scholarship: seeing the university as a ground of contention" by taiaiake alfred

"colonialism is not an historical era, nor is it a theory or merely a political and economic relationship.  it is a total existence, a way of thinking about oneself and others always in terms of domination and submission that has come to form the very foundation of our individual and collective lives."

 "five hundred years of physical and psychological warfare have created a culture of fear among both the subdued and dominant peoples.  we have all emerged out of a shameful past, a history of racial and religious hatreds, of extreme violence, and of profound injustice.  it is impossible to even acknowledge it truthfully.  our modern culture, for both the victims and the perpetrators, consists in a denial of the past and of its moral implications.  it is an aversion to the truth about who we really are and where we come from.  more than the moneyed privilege of the newcomers, more than the chaotic disadvantage of the original peoples, this is what we have inherited from our shared past: relationships founded on hatred and violence and a culture founded on lies to assuage the guilt or shame of it all.  we are afraid of our memories, afraid of what we have become, afraid of each other, and afraid for the future.  fear is the foundation of the way we are in the world and the way we think about the future.  it has become normal, and we have grown used to it."

"the conception of the truth that will liberate us from our colonial past is this: honesty and courage lead to mutual understanding, and understanding creates the crucial connections that generate the sense of community - love - that is needed to overcome the disconnection and division and mutual hatreds that reinforce colonialism."

"in withdrawing from relevancy and immersing ourselves in the battle for personal gain or involving ourselves only in disciplinary and academic fights, we are playing assimilation's endgame."

"for those among us who are opposed to assimilation to the north american standard of conformity to possessive individualism, consumer culture, and state patriotism, there are two imperatives in an Indigenous ethical frame.  the first is to respect, value, and honor differences (independence); and the second is to organize one's mind and attitudes around the idea of the sharing of space (interdependence)."

"universities are part of the larger institutional system serving imperial objectives, today called 'globalization' when referring to the economic facets of the process or 'modernity' in relation to the cultural facets."

"given that academe today is such a crucial part of the larger injustice of modernity. . .are we part of the process of destruction of Indigenous cultures and nations, or are we upholding our responsibility to contend with it?  what can we do?  and what is the way to transcend this situation and regenerate our communities and cultures so that our peoples may survive into the future?"

"struggling against and negotiating with the descendants of europeans occupying our homelands for all these years, we have become very skilled, in the european way, at naming everything about ourselves: beliefs, rights, authorities, jurisdictions, land use areas, categories of membership in our communities. . . as if it were enough to speak these things to make them into a reality.  in fighting for our future, we have been sucked into thinking that 'Indigenous' or 'First Nations,' 'Carrier,' 'Cree,' or 'Mohawk' (even if we use Kanien'kehaka, or Innu, or Wet'suwet'en) is something that is attached to us inherently, and not a description of what we do with our lives."

from chapter 6: "seeing (and reading) red: Indian outlaws in the ivory towers" by daniel heath justice

"it's the standard stereotype for Native peoples throughout the americas: we're measured by pieces and parts, 'torn between worlds,' relegated to some romanticized past, never fully of the present.  and sometimes, in reality, we're pulled between the ranks and privileges of powerful institutions and the kitchen tables of our families, where life and culture so often gather.  Native wholeness is a threat to white dominance, as it evades the allotment of our lives and lands and faces the threat directly.  our fight is that of all Indigenous peoples: to remain whole, unbroken, and adaptive through tradition."

"humility is elusive in an academic world that privileges individual achievement over communal harmony"

 "to survive in the mouth of this dragon we call america, we have had to learn this first and most vital lesson - that we were never meant to survive.  not as human beings." - audre lorde

"whether Native or non-Native, we've been trained by the overculture to see whiteness as normative and eternal; decolonization, in this worldview, is not only portrayed as unrealistic, but even pathological, for it brings into question the very conceptual foundations upon which the colonial estate is built."

"the struggle for sovereignty is not a struggle to be free from the influence of anything outside ourselves, but a process of asserting the power we possess as communities and individuals to make decisions that affect our lives." -clyde warrior

"we're also active participants in the community's making of meaning.  we're not outsiders looking in; we're insiders looking in and out."

"American Indian people have recently experienced the end of the world. . . [we] are a postapocalypse people who, as such, have tremendous experience to offer all other people who must, in their own time, experience their own cultural death as part of the natural cycle.  the ways in which American Indian people have suffered, survived, and managed to go on, communicated through story-telling, have tremendous potential to affect the future of mankind." -sidner larson

"all people have poetry in them.  some can't write it, but the poet can listen intently to what people say and send it out into the world.  it's a process of translation for the people." - marilou awiakta

summer reading part one

all quotes from the book indigenizing the academy: transforming scholarship and empowering communities edited by devon abbott mihesuah & angela cavender wilson


from chapter 1: "marginal and submarginal" by vine deloria jr.

"academia has often been a hotbed of racism because scholars are taught to pretend that they can observe phenomena objectively."

"with western thought primarily a binary, yes/no method of determining truth, so much data is excluded, and so limited are the possible answers that western knowledge might be regarded as a mere classification system devoid of valid conclusions."

from chapter 2: "academic gatekeepers" by devon abbott mihesuah

"all rulers are the heirs of those who conquered before them.  whoever has emerged victorious participates to this day in the triumphal procession in which the present rulers step over those who are lying prostrate.  according to traditional practice, the spoils are carried along in the procession." -walter benjamin

"projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry.  the teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence." -paulo freire

"what is the use of studying history and culture if you cannot assist those alive today?"


from chapter 3: "corrupt state university: the organizational psychology of native experience in higher education" by keith james

"the image of an institution of higher education that many of us have internalized includes ideals of dominance of reason, meritocracy, free exchange of ideas, and humanistic support for the downtrodden.  in higher education, as in organizations of other types, however, emotion, informal identity, and culture- and social-group-based norms frequently trump formal institutional ideals, goals, and policies."

"professing one set of policies and procedures while actually operating under another is the essence of corruption.  in fact, the tendency of groups whose members share a common identity to share information and decisions among themselves and withhold it from outsiders is a major corrupting force of bureaucratic systems."

"it is not that linearity and reductionism are evil a priori, it is just that they tend to be overly valued by mainstream science and mainstream academics such that complexity and integration are often ignored or greeted with hostility even when circumstances really demand them."

from chapter 4: "reclaiming our humanity: decolonization and the recovery of indigenous knowledge" by angela cavender wilson

"a large part of decolonization entails developing a critical consciousness about the cause(s) of our oppression, the distortion of history, our own collaboration, and the degrees to which we have internalized colonialist ideas and practices.  decolonization requires auto-criticism, self-reflection, and a rejection of victimage.  decolonization is about empowerment - a belief that situations can be transformed, a belief and trust in our own peoples' values and abilities, and a willingness to make change.  it is about transforming negative reactionary energy into the more positive rebuilding energy needed in our communities." -winona wheeler

"as intellectuals we have a responsibility to generate and sustain a social and political discourse that is respectful of the wisdom embedded within our traditions; we must find answers from within those traditions, and present them in ways that preserve the integrity of our languages and communicative styles.  most importantly, as writers and thinkers, we should be answerable to our nations and communities." -taiaiake alfred

"engaging in an activity within the academy such as the recovery of Indigenous knowledge also presumes that to some extent Indigenous knowledge can be effectively transferable to an institution.  this is a great presumption, and certainly we as Indigenous scholars would agree that there is much tribal knowledge that is inappropriate for the microscope, manuscript, or classroom."

it's only love

vellum

vellum

i was born with a path of skin

measuring itself.

i tumbled into the front row

without tickets, past security,

here. this. have a seat.

we find a stage,

sweltering wounds,

heat and blushing and bandages.

let's speak about skin but also

about paper. with documents 

and dollars, let's talk

prisons, land.

the mystic hears music

and sleeps in

jumpsuits (the color of sun

rise), cold cots with no

one to call.

go.

seriously, go. 

find it,

the answers.

what becomes of this

empty rhetoric, what of this

cold eye yay eye.

i just don't get

it i get it

all

except

there are fences that fall on my hand

as i reach, there are borders

that cross my body at each

blue eye

so crying comes

easily, heaving, it happens

a lot, i will

rise into echoes

overfed or

so small

i disappear

into

we.

you tell me.

for the cracked

brutal landscape of this

world, is my heart?

we
show ourselves

in shiny surfaces

and tiny

paper
cuts

10.9.12

oh wouldn't you know

oh wouldn't you know

big letters
in small words
making long listless lines

distraction
lingers in my mouth
a tongue tossing hard
candy about,
a frightened swimmer,
heavy waters

in the new age,
our fingers are held
responsible

piano-like, they dance
and block chances

every screen is a distant wish
to be taken down:
who climbs in bed
with computers?

everyone

these days can technologically be
warming, hot boxes on cold laps
where humans used to

hold
each
other
each
limb
held

promise

i've known headphones,
but what's more, i've known
singing softly in an ear

tucking hair back
tickling with the slightest breath

these words look like beads
of sweat, like birds,
a curve of chin/ eyelash/ wings
stretched, diving in with blankets cold,

collapse. into the tangible:


10.30.12

the body it moves

with it

with it

"no longer will i try to assign partners for god"
-rumi

the mirror slipped
out of hands held
in heavens together
some

large hands
what color
like

did the hands attach
to arms with hair
or without, scrubbed nails

and flowing
beard? i saw bright red
nailpolish, roses
pressed between
palms without
thorns

i put the hands together
folded them all neat
like linen napkins
cast them in porcelain
despite the poet's
words as above

so below!!!!!
i yelled into the canyon,
took the mirror from my bag

i threw it down
down
down
hard

didn't see it hit
a thing

didn't see it

bounce

10.23.12

fire alone is the theme

fire alone is the theme

sleep came once in                           fragments

child dreams:
             to pet a horse
to chase a bird               from a tree.

windy conversations             toss themselves
                  clothes on a line.

muddy,
without shoes

the kitchen is florida
orange.  the                      phone is            ice cream
                                                  melting
                                                         hands.
      
closed
for fear
of busy-ness,

my heart patters softly, a cliche

clicking               its way                   into a chamber
of some gun.       heavy like                  ripe red
meat                   in a belly,                i am seasick

with discovery.
                            the past and
                                            further past
                                sews itself to the mattress
                    no sheet
           no pillows
no feathers
no.
        i've not motioned
into circle          parabola or
line.
                the theme of the night is fire
and i am                                                                       [never & always]

kindling, burning
                                                        alone

12.05.06

another

another

just come find me
already

my arms are up
and waving

what will you
be wearing?

how will i know
it's

me

10.23.12

you are standing at the edge of the woods

You Are Standing at the Edge of the Woods
By Mary Oliver

You are standing at the edge of the woods
at twilight
when something begins
to sing, like a waterfall

pouring down
through the leaves. It is
the thrush.
And you are just

sinking down into your thoughts,
taking in
the sweetness of it—those chords,
those pursed twirls—when you hear

out of the same twilight
the wildest red outcry. It pitches itself
forward, it flails and scabs
all the surrounding space with such authority

you can’t tell
whether it is crying out on the
scarp of victory, with its hooked foot
dabbed into some creature that now
with snapped spine
lies on the earth—or whether
it is such a struck body itself, saying
goodbye.

The thrush
is silent then, or perhaps
has flown away.
The dark grows darker.

The moon,
in its shining white blouse,
rises.
And whatever that wild cry was

it will always remain a mystery
you have to go home now and live with,
sometimes with the ease of music, and sometimes in silence,

for the rest of your life.

gender self-determination

all quotes from dean spade's essay, "compliance is gendered: struggling for gender self-determination in a hostile economy" from transgender rights

"public relief systems have also operated through moralistic understandings of sexuality and family structure to force recipients into compliance with sexist and heterosexist notions of womanhood and motherhood."

"day-to-day surveillance of low-income people and the rigid and punitive rule systems used in social services create a highly regulated context for the gender expression, sexuality, and family structure of low-income women who often rely on these systems to get out of economically dependent relationships with men."

"almost all of the institutions and programs that exist to control and exploit poor people and people of color in the united states are sex segregated."

"property ownership itself has been a raced and gendered right throughout u.s. history, and an individual's race, gender, and sexuality have operated as forms of property themselves.  similarly, interventions that would appear to seek to remedy the exploitative and damaging outcomes of our economic system have often been structured to control gendered behavior and expression and incentivize misogynist and heterosexist family norms."

"marriage incentives and requirements that mothers disclose the paternity of their children are only the most explicit examples of how the moral performance on which [welfare] benefit receipt is conditional is fundamentally a requirement that poor women rigidly obey conservative notions of gender role and family structure."

"these morality-based understandings of poverty play out in the day-to-day operation of social services programs that emphasize surveillance and gender regulation of poor people."

"access to homeless and domestic violence shelters is mediated through punitive processes where those looking for assistance are treated as morally and intellectually deficient and subjected to humiliating violations of privacy as an integral part of the disincentification of receiving services.  navigating benefits systems, shelter systems, essential medical services, and entanglement with the criminal justice system that is now a central aspect of low-income existence in order to survive is increasingly tied to the ability of each person to meet highly gendered and raced behavioral and expression requirements."

"gender segregation remains a central organizing strategy of systems of social control."

"almost everyone who comes to the sylvia rivera law project for services is facing serious consequences of failing to fit within a rigid binary gender structure in multiple systems and institutions: welfare, adult or juvenile justice, public education, voluntary or mandated drug treatment, homeless services, and mental and physical health care.  'compliance' is a central issue that my clients face in these systems.  they are unable to 'comply' or 'rehabilitate' because to do either means to match stereotypes associated with their birth genders."

"access to gender-related medical intervention is usually conditioned on successful performance of rigidly defined and harshly enforced understandings of binary gender, because many gender-transgressive people may not wish to undergo medical intervention, and because medical care of all kinds, but particularly gender-related medical care, remains extremely inaccessible to most low-income gender-transgressive people."

"while nondiscrimination policies may provide remedies in some important contexts, they do not address the broader problem that prevents gender self-determination and creates daily dangerous and deadly situations for poor, gender-transgressive people: the existence of legal gender classification."

"we need to expand resources for trainings and build political alliances so that domestic violence shelter providers and activists, homeless shelter providers and activists, welfare rights activists, the prison abolition movement, and others whose work is intimately tied to the fates of poor, gender-transgressive people come to understand gender self-determination and the elimination of sex segregation as a core component of the equality and justice their work seeks."

"sexual and gender liberation will never be meaningful if it is contingent on economic privilege, racial privilege, or genital status."

chapter two: reappropriations

all quotes from welcome to the desert of the real by slavoj zizek


"it is the awareness that we live in an insulated artificial universe which generates the notion that some ominous agent is threatening us all the time with total destruction."

"money fetishism will culminate with the passage to its electronic form. . . the debt is inscribed somewhere in virtual digital space. . . does not the same also hold for warfare?"

"we are entering a new age of paranoiac warfare in which the greatest task will be to identify the enemy and his weapons. . . and is not the obverse of this paranoiac omnipresence of the invisible war its desubstantialization?"

"a war experienced by its participants as a video game. . . we, ordinary citizens, are totally dependent on the authorities for information about what is going on: we see and hear nothing; all we know comes from the official media."

"is not the obverse of this surprise the rather sad fact that we, in first world countries, find it more and more difficult even to imagine a public or universal cause for which we would be ready to sacrifice our life?"

"if we look more closely, what is this 'clash of civilizations' actually about?  are not all real-life 'clashes' clearly related to global capitalism?"

"this 'perverted' position of the truly 'fundamentalist' conservative arab regimes is the key to the (often comical) conundrums of american politics in the middle east: they stand for the point at which the usa is forced explicitly to acknowledge the primacy of economy over democracy"

"the fact that global capitalism is a totality means that it is the dialectical unity of itself and of its other, off the forces which resist it on 'fundamentalist' ideological grounds."

"'i do not believe that anyone is politically guiltless.' [-jaques derrida] this self-relating, this inclusion of oneself in the picture, is the only true 'infinite justice'."

black earth

settler colonialism

quotes from settler colonialism & the elimination of the native by patrick wolfe

"territoriality is settler colonialism's specific irreducible element."

"the american right to buy always superseded the indian right not to sell."

"the international slave trade and the highest echelons of the formal state apparatus converged across three continents with the disorderly pillaging of a nomadic horde who may or may not have been 'lawless' but who were categorically white."

"in contrast to extractive industries, which rely on what just happens to be there, agriculture is a rational means/end calculus that is geared to vouchsafing its own production, generating capital that projects into a future where it repeats itself."

"in addition to its objective economic centrality to the project, agriculture, with its life-sustaining connectedness to land, is a potent symbol of settler-colonial identity."

"settler colonialism is relatively impervious to regime change."

". . .the logic of elimination, which, in its specificity to settler colonialism, is premised on the securing - the obtaining and the maintaining- of territory.  this logic certainly requires the elimination of the owners of that territory, but not in any particular way.  to this extent, it is a larger category than genocide."